Like the morning before, the nursery was warm with mid-morning light, the kind that turned dust into gold and made even the coldest stone feel like a warm embrace. Enid sat on a thick rug near the hearth, her skirts pulled around her, sleeves rolled to her elbows. And Anastasia lay on a quilted blanket before her, kicking her chubby legs and squealing absolutely nothing. 

Although Enid had a feeling she was giggling at her. 

Nico is stretched out on his belly beside his sister, dangling a knitted rabbit above her face with the seriousness of a court physician conducting an examination. Or perhaps like the owner of a kitten who wanted to figure out its movements.

“She’s going to grab it this time,” Nico said seriously. “I can tell.”

Enid chuckled. “You have said that three times already.”

“But Enid, this time I mean it.”

Anastasia’s blue eyes tracked the rabbit. Her little hands opened and closed. 

Then—she grabbed it. 

Nico gasped as if he’d witnessed a miracle. 

“She did it! Enid, She did it!”

Anastasia  promptly shoved the rabbit’s ear in her mouth and gummed it with a fierce determination. It was disgusting but quite cute. 

“That’s disgusting!” Nico repeated, quite delighted. 

Ines glanced up from the corner where she was folding fresh linens, a small smile tugging at the young woman’s lips. 

‘Wasn’t she crawling yesterday? By winter she’ll be walking at this rate.”

 “She’s trying,” Enid said, brushing a curl from the baby’s face. “Honestly, yesterday when she started crawling, I was scared she’d reach the garden before I stopped her.”

Anastasia giggled at.that.

Nico puffed out his chest. “That’s because I’m training her. I’m a wonderful brother.”

The boy seems to forget that yesterday he was examining beetles, but all the same Enid agrees. 

“The best.”

The warm, comfortable atmosphere continued... until the door opened. 

Enid felt her shoulders tense immeadiately, almost as if she knew it was the duke. Helios was already stepping inside, his presence filling the room like smoke. He was dressed casually, just a loose linen shirt that showed off his divine chest, dark trousers, and bare feet. His silver-streaked hair was still damp, which made Enid wonder if he’d come straight from washing. 

He looked... unreasonably soft. 

“Papa!”

Nico scrambled to his feet and launched himself across the room. Enid was surprised how fast he was as he ran across the carpet. Helios caught him with practiced ease, lifting him up and settling him against his chest. 

“You’re heavy, Helios said.

“But Papa, you’re strong. Nico counted Flutterer.”

Anastasia, meanwhile, has spotted her father. She dropped the rabbit immediately and began to flail her arms in a series of urgent babbles, spilling from her lips. “Bah!”

With Nico still in his arms, he crossed the carpet, then knelt and scooped Anastasia into his arms with one hand. She squealed with unbridled joy, Karma grabbing fistfuls of his shirt and pressing her drooly face against his jaw. “Good morning to you too little Linus,” he murmured.

Enid watched, breathless. Was he actually going to begin being a better father? The serpent of Rodreiros. He looked nothing like the man that pinned her to walls and whispered threats against her skin but this he was something else entirely.

Nico grabbed Helios’s sleeve. “Papa, watch. Ana can grab things now. I taught her.”

“Did you know?”

“Yes I’m an excellent teacher.”

Helios glanced at Enid with one brow raised. 

She looks at him and shrugs. 

“He’s been very dedicated.” Nico beamed at her words.

Helios settled into the rug, with them in his arms. Anastasia is babbling in his lap and Nico is snuggled against his side. His son chatters about beetles and breakfast while his daughter gnaws on her father’s collar.

The nanny quietly folds linens in the corner and then there’s Enid, just watching a scene unfold in front of her, one of a gentle father and his two young children. 

There was never been a scene like this in a book. Not with all three of them together. It was actually nice to see that her presence in this world, even something that had insignificance, changed the three.

Helios caught her eye. 

“You’re staring,” he said. 

She can feel her face heat up and she stutters and nods. 

“Yes you are.”

“I’m just surprised.” 

“At what?”

She hesitated, wondering how to say her words before she just goes for it, quietly: “You look like a father.” 

Something flickered in his gaze. 

Not anger, not heat, not something softer. 

“I am one,” he said. “Sometimes I forget.” 

Nico wiggles away from his arms to crawl into his lap next to Anastasia, squishing himself against his father’s chest. “Papa, you should come to the nursery more. Ana misses you and Enid tells better stories than Ines.”

“I do not” Enid said quickly.

“You do,” Ines, said dryly from the corner. “Don’t worry, I’ve accepted it.”

Helios looked down at two children piled against him then back at Enid. 

“Perhaps I will,” he said. 
And for one strange moment, to Enid, they felt like a family. 

A/N: A little one liner as preview of the next chapter, a little smut before the plot gets messier. 

“Good girls,” he murmured, stepping closer, “deserve rewards.”